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15.05.2007 General News

Minister Attacks Joy Correspondent

15.05.2007 LISTEN
By The Lens

oy FM's Northern Regional correspondent, Mahama Shaibu, was yesterday given a serious tongue-lashing by the Northern Regional Minister, Mustapha Ali Iddris, for reporting on an incident that led to about twenty students of the Northern School of Business getting hurt.
The Minister's 'problem' with the Joy FM correspondent was that he (the correspondent) did not first clear the report with the Minister before putting it out, live, on Joy FM's mid-day news yesterday.
For this supposed infraction, the Minister called the correspondent before a meeting that the Minister was holding at the School over the incident, and gave him some serious tongue-lashing.
When The Ghanaian Lens reached Mahama Shaibu, he confirmed the incident, and said that he felt highly embarrassed by the conduct of the Minister.
“You see, I was on the school campus when I put out the live report, and the Minister too was at that material moment having a meeting with the school authorities over the matter. After I put out my report, the Minister called me before the meeting and really embarrassed me when he castigated me for not clearing the report with him before putting it out,” Mahama Shaibu recounted.
“My brother, I am totally appalled that the Minister should even think that in this day and age a reporter should first clear a report with a Minister before putting it out. This is clearly an attempt at censorship and I do not take kindly to it at all,” an apparently disturbed Mahama Shaibu told The Ghanaian Lens.
“In the first place, the Minister is not my editor, so why should he even presume that I should check the report with him before putting it out?” Shaibu queried.
Asked how the Minister's conduct is likely to affect the conduct of his journalistic duties in the Northern region, Mahama Shaibu replied, “coming so shortly at the heels of a physical attack on me by an NPP activist known as Latiff, who actually slapped me in the studios of a radio station, I really feel threatened. However, that would not deter me from carrying on with my journalistic duties.”
Yesterday, on Joy Mid-day News, Mahama Shaibu put out a live report about an attack on the Northern School of Business by some young people, resulting in about twenty students of the school sustaining injuries.
Three persons are currently being held by the Tamale Police for the attack on the school.

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